Dropped Stitches, Part One

It happens to every knitter. And even as an advanced
knitter, I still do it and I still cringe (and over react) when it happens.

I am talking about dropping a stitch. It feels like the end
of the world. But the truth is that it is really simple to fix.

Today I am going to start a two part series on picking up
dropped stitches. In this series I will be focusing on two of the basic stitches –
stockinette stitch and garter stitch.

To practice this, you are going to need a piece of knitting
with a dropped stitch and a crochet hook in a similar size. If you don’t have
the same size as your knitting needle, you will want to use a hook that is a
little smaller. A bigger hook might stretch the stitch out and if you go too
small it might difficult to catch the yarn with the hook.

Let’s start with a stockinette stitch example. Imagine
you’re knitting along and everything seems fine when all of a sudden you see
this:

First things first…DON’T PANIC.

You want to catch the ‘live’ stitch with the hook from front to back
with your crochet hook.

With the hook facing up, catch the length of yarn from the
backside of the work.

Pull the length of yarn up through the loop on needle.

Place new loop on the left hand needle.

And violà, you are back on track!

If you have dropped you stitch a few rows down, just keep
repeating the process working from the bottom up until you have all the
stitches picked up.

Simple, right?

Our friends at Web's did a short video on this technique.

Now that you are back on track…

Knit on!

P.S. For those of you who are going to ask...my swatch is in Liberty Wool Solid in 7856 Hydrangea.